How to Delete Your Facebook Account

If you're sick of Facebook, you can cancel your account. Once you've deleted your Facebook account, you will never be able to log in to it again, and all of the personal and contact information you stored there will be gone. If you just want to disappear for a while, you can opt to suspend your account temporarily. In this article I’ll explain how to permanently delete your Facebook account, as well as how to temporarily deactivate it.

Permanently Deleting Your Facebook Account

1. Log in to your Facebook account.

2. Open Account Settings.

3. Under Linked Accounts, click Edit. Remove all linked accounts. Why? If you log in to Facebook within two weeks of permanently deleting your account, your account will not be deleted. If you are logged in to any of the accounts listed under Linked Accounts, you are automatically logged in to Facebook. Therefore, you should remove all linked accounts to ensure that the deletion process goes smoothly.

4. Open Privacy Settings.

5. Open Apps, Games and Websites.

6. Under 'Apps you use', click Remove. In the list, remove all apps, games, and websites. Again, taking this step helps the deletion process go as smoothly as possible.

7. if you want to save your profile data on your hard drive, now is the time to do it. Open Account Settings and click Download a copy of your Facebook data.

8. Head to the Facebook Help center to initiate the permament deletion of your account. You can search the Facebook Help center for “delete account,” and you will find the same link. If you're sure that you want to proceed, click Submit.

Important Notes

For two weeks after you delete your account, Facebook retains your data in case you wish to reverse your decision. If you don’t log in to Facebook for two weeks, your account will be permanently deleted.

Immediately after deleting your account, clear the cache of the browser(s) you use to log in to Facebook. Doing this is another way to make sure that you don’t accidentally log in to your Facebook account or use it in the two weeks after deleting it.

Facebook provides the following disclaimer about deleting your account: "Copies of some material (photos, notes, etc.) may remain in our servers for technical reasons, but this material is disassociated from any personal identifiers and completely inaccessible to other people using Facebook." In other words, your data could remain on Facebook’s servers for a while, but it is no longer identifiable as your data, nor is anyone able to search for it. Eventually, your old data will be overwritten and forever deleted.

If you accidentally use your Facebook account within two weeks after deleting it, you’ll need to initiate the deletion process again.

Temporarily Deactivating Your Account

1. Log in to your Facebook account.

2. Open Account Settings.

3. Open Security.

4. Click Deactivate your account. Your account will no longer be viewable, but it will remain intact. Simply log in to Facebook again to reactivate your account.